Unscrambling the Myths about Social Media

Social media has transformed the speed at which consumers demand marketers respond to their needs. It’s imperative for brands to be agile—to adapt to consumers’ dynamic behaviors and synchronize with
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Social media has transformed the speed at which consumers demand marketers respond to their needs. It’s imperative for brands to be agile—to adapt to consumers’ dynamic behaviors and synchronize with culture. Read, download and share our report that helps brands stay in sync with shifting online habits.

Transcript

1.
www.sparksandhoney.com @sparksandhoney

2.
Staying in sync with culture
Social media has transformed the way we communicate,
how we consume content, and the speed at which we
demand marketers respond to our needs.
Today, it’s imperative for brands to be agile – to adapt
to consumers’ dynamic behaviors and synchronize with
culture. Brands that can’t provide real-time, relevant
content and experiences will become obsolete. In our
mission to leverage cultural insights to elevate brands’
efforts in all aspects of marketing and innovation, we
have unscrambled the myths about social media to help
you stay in sync with shifting online habits.

4.
Emoji Tracker, a real-time tool that tracks the
number of everyone’s favorite Japanese emoticons
being used on Twitter, is proof that worldwide emoji
use has reached stratospheric levels.
The top emojis on Twitter at the time of writing are:
288,625,322 mentions
33,016,067 mentions
19,692,028 mentions.
Source: emojitracker.com
Earlier this year, freelance journalist, Fletcher Babb,
received death threats in the form of emojis for
his investigation into Instagram’s widening black
market of illegal prescription drugs. This led law
enforcement to rethink the unexplored territory
of emoticons in cyberlaw.
As millennials adopt emojis as their primary
language, a gap in communications between
Generation Y and the rest of the population will
widen. Code-switching will evolve into a full-blown
generational language gap.
Millennials communicate in emojis, a visual
vernacular that conveys humor, ambiguity,
personality and meaning.

6.
Small retailers generated anywhere between
25-40% of daily sales via Instagram while larger
retail brands are leveraging the platform to promote
and preview new products, and host photo
contests that require participants to purchase
a product to participate.
Source: Fashionista.com; Ecommercerules.com
Traditional brick-and-mortar retail will die away
as we move towards the world on sale. Imagine
a Manhattan with no retail stores, but every
object capable of being identified, selected and
purchased on demand; or hotels where shops
and accommodations are one and the same.
In many markets, it’s a burgeoning
e-commerce platform.

8.
Facebook’s most substantial growth in 2013 came
from those in the senior set, with 45% of people age
65+ now using the platform, up from 35% in 2012.
Source: pewinternet.org
On Twitter, the 55-64 bracket is the fastest growing,
with a 79% increase since 2012, while the fastest
growth on both Facebook and Google+ is with
45 to 54 year olds.
Source: GlobalWebIndexStudy
The social space will explode with new networks
targeting specific demographics. Expect to see
niche platforms with user experiences tailored
for babies, geriatrics, and everyone in between.
Multiple “internets” may emerge as a result of this,
each with its own audiences, social norms, and
coded dialects.
It’s thanks to grandma that Facebook
was the dominant social network in 2013.

9.
Twitter serves as a primary
second screen platform during
Live TV events.
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10.
According to Trendrr, a Social TV Analytics platform,
Facebook boasts 5x more social TV activity than
Twitter, with strengths around news programming,
Hispanic programming and live sporting events.
The idea of the “second screen” will fade away
as augmented reality overlays in the form of lenses
and glasses gain popularity. This form of connection
will be more impactful and engaging, but also more
invasive. When brands abuse this space, expect
more intense backlash than found on traditional
social platforms.
Limited by the private nature of its data,
Facebook has received little credit for
driving social TV activity and show
ratings. However, recent studies reveal
that Facebook outpaces all other social
networks in second screen activity.

11.
Twitter is a reliable barometer
of broader public opinion.
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12.
Twitter serves as a statistically unsound proxy
for the broader country, skewing young (45%
are 18-29, more than double that age group’s
share of the overall population), educated (40%
have a Bachelor’s Degree vs. 20% of the overall
population) and affluent (48% earn $75,000+ vs.
39% of the overall population).
Source: Pew Research Center
Ubiquitous tracking, sharing, and computing will
turn social platforms (and their data) into actual
measures of a population. At any time, users will be
able to analyze the entire world’s data for answers
to any questions they might have. Due to this
development, political and marketing interests
in social networks will only continue grow.
Twitter’s skewed demographics
make it an inaccurate indicator.

13.
Google+ is a ghost town
that doesn’t really matter.
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14.
The number of Google +1s is the second strongest
organic search ranking factor after “Page Authority,”
with a 0.30 correlation.
Source: SEOmoz 2013 Search Ranking Factors Study
Search ads with Google +1 annotations generate
a 5-10% uplift in click-through rate.
Source: Google AdWords
Google+ will aggregate not only humans, but
also the human-like, ultimately becoming the first
post-human social network. This platform will
connect robots, emotional smart appliances,
and the vast array of devices formerly known as the
internet of things.
Because of Google’s dominance in search,
Google+ plays an integral role in determining
your brand’s search ranking.

16.
Twitter handles more search queries per month –
32 billion – more than Bing and Yahoo! combined.
Source: www.rocketpost.com
Pinterest search actually beats Google image
search by providing more actionable results
and more digestible information quickly.
Source: searchengineland.com
Visual search will become the norm due to the
increase in wearable augemented reality devices,
and a new search king will emerge to overtake
traditional search engines.
The second largest search engine is actually
a social network—YouTube—and it’s bigger
than Bing, Ask, AOL and Yahoo! combined.

17.
My brand needs to be
on every social network.
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18.
Every social network has different uses and
benefits. For example, Instagram is best for visual
lifestyle brands that can post authentic, real-time
photos regularly, while Pinterest is best for brands
that already have a rich, image-based website
from which photos can be pinned.
Instead of spreading content across multiple
channels, brands of the future may focus exclusively
on one channel and become synonymous with it.
As a result, we’ll see brands acting more like VCs,
supporting symbiotic channels with financial backing.
Brands must pick the ideal social networks
to reach and impact their unique target.

19.
People primarily prefer to engage
with snackable content.
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20.
Two-thirds of time spent on a webpage is
“below the fold.”
Source: Chartbeat
Nearly 40% of time spent watching online videos
consists of long-form viewing.
Source: Ooyala’s Global Video Index Report
Content will be as long or short as a reader likes.
Looking for today’s newspaper summed up in
one word? Just collapse the text for summation.
It’s not the length of your content,
but what you say with it.

22.
On average, posts with hashtags generated
a median viral reach per fan of 0.8% versus 1.3%
for posts without hashtags.
Source: Edgerank Checker Study
On Facebook, hashtags are primarily used
in promotional material and are therefore likely
to drive less engagement.
Source: Edgerank Checker Study
Real-time tools will wordsmith your writing for
optimal shareability as you type, making your
every sentence “upworthy.”
Hashtags do nothing to generate additional
exposure and are limited by Facebook users’
privacy settings.

23.
Watching TV online is more
popular than watching live-
streamed game play.
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24.
Twitch reports 12 billion minutes watched per
month, over 45 million unique viewers per month,
900,000 broadcasters per month, and 6 million
total videos broadcasted per month. Twitch users
watch an average 106 minutes of content per day.
Professional gaming will reach more and more
fans, while exploding into micro-niches. Expect
microsuperstars to emerge: the world’s best flappy-bird
player, the world’s most talented candy crush master,
the world’s fastest Mario platformer and more.
Each month millions of visitors go to Twitch,
a broadcasting gaming video platform
to watch other users play games.

25.
www.sparksandhoney.com
sparks & honey is a data-driven advertising newsroom that helps synchronize brands with culture. Leveraging our
proprietary Cultural Strategy tools like Cultural Listening and Platform Mapping, we monitor and score content
energy levels, project their lifespan and analyze their cultural resonance. These tools allows us to develop cultural
insights that drive social content development, marketing strategy, and long-term planning.
About Us
Named Ad Age’s Top 10 Agencies to Watch 2014